


i'm just saying there might be a life here

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25101490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: A midnight wandering leads to a conversation between Daniel and Daisy.
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 48
Kudos: 343





	i'm just saying there might be a life here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marvelthismarvelthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelthismarvelthat/gifts).



Daniel’s still getting used to living on a plane. He’s still getting used to a lot of things, actually, but ‘living on a plane’ is pretty high up there on the list. Various pieces of technology on the plane are also pretty high up there - computers that can fit into his palm, screens in technicolor like he never dreamed. Oh, and time travel. Time travel is definitely number one on his ‘things to get used to’ list.

The plane (the Zephyr, everyone else calls it) has multiple levels, and a hell of a lot more stairs than Daniel thinks should be on any sensible plane. It’s a pain in the ass to move from level to level, but he’s worried the clump of his leg on the ground will wake everyone else if he paces through the residential area, so down the stairs he goes. The doctor, Simmons, says they can work on getting him a new prosthetic (a _better_ prosthetic goes unsaid), but they need to wait for her husband to get back from wherever the hell he is before it can happen. Daniel’s just fine with that; he’s been handling his prosthetic for ages, a new prosthetic will just be added to his list of things to adjust to. He does, however, accept the offer of a new cane, since he hadn’t been able to recover his old one from Malick.

When he makes his way to the lounge in the belly of the plane he’s surprised to see someone else already sitting there. Agent Johnson has her knees drawn to her chest on the sofa, and she’s staring at the wall like it’ll give her answers.

Daniel’s been there, and he knows better than to interrupt someone that deep in thought. He’s apparently given himself away, though, because Johnson says, “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want.”

He walks a few paces closer. “How’d you know I was here?”

“My powers… I do more than just shake things,” she explains, still not turning to look at him. “I feel the vibrations in everything. Including heartbeats.”

“Sounds overwhelming,” Daniel comments, dropping into a nearby chair.

“It was at first. Now it’s kind of nice.” She tilts her head, lifts a shoulder in a delicate half-shrug, then flicks her eyes to him. “Why are you awake?”

“Got a lot to think about, and not much other time to think about it. What about you?”

“The same.” This time Johnson - no, she said to call her Daisy - looks at him fully, almost like she’s studying him. 

“You’re surprisingly okay for someone who’s been tortured,” Daniel says. There’s no use in beating around the bush - Daisy seems to be the kind of person who appreciates directness.

“It’s not my first rodeo,” Daisy answers drily.

Daniel blinks, confused.

“Shit, do you not have that expression?” Daisy pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes and keeps them there for a second before sighing. “Sorry. I keep forgetting this is all new to you. That must be tough.”

He knows enough to realize she’s deflecting the question, but not enough to be able to redirect the conversation. So he nods and forces a smile. “From what I’ve been told, it’s either information overload or death. And I’m not overly fond of the second option.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Daisy’s smile seems less forced than his is, and a small flare lights in Daniel’s chest. At least if he’s confused and uncertain, he’s still making someone else happy. Specifically, he’s making Daisy happy, and she seems to need more of that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. Daniel’s more than aware of how awkward the question is, but after he came back from Belgium, no one had wanted to talk to him about… anything, really. They’d avoided looking at him, avoided talking to him, avoided doing anything other than clapping and thanking him for his sacrifice. That was all to make them feel better, not him.

“Not really.” Daisy stretches her legs out, and Daniel averts his eyes. Another product of a new time - clothes that show off way, way more skin than he’s used to. It doesn’t bother him, exactly, but it’s still new that he’s not _supposed_ to look away just because a lady is showing some leg. 

“We don’t really do the whole talking thing, here,” Daisy says, apparently oblivious to his reaction. “I mean. We had a therapist for like, six months, but then he turned out to be murdering people, and _that_ was kind of a bummer, because he was also May’s ex-husband, so…”

“Wow,” is all Daniel can manage.

“I mean, you get it, right? The life we sign up for isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

“I guess I was kind of hoping the future would be better,” Daniel admits. “That was naive of me.”

“It’s not naive to be hopeful.” Daniel drags his eyes back to Daisy’s, the earnesty in her voice too much for him to ignore. “Seriously. It’s nice to know that someone who’s seen what you saw still has hope for a better world.”

“Don’t you?” Daniel asks. He doesn’t understand how anyone can do the work they do if they don’t believe the world can be made better. The pain, the despair, the heartache - it’s only worthwhile if it means something.

“Yeah.” Daisy smiles again, softer; it even reaches her eyes this time. “Yeah, I do.”

They lapse into silence. The sound of Daisy’s breathing, quiet and even, slows his racing thoughts in an unexpected way. Daniel feels more grounded, even though he’s quite literally in the sky.

“I had this friend, who fought in a war,” Daisy says suddenly. “He told me once coming back was worse than the actual war.”

The request for comment is unspoken, but Daniel hears it anyway. “I guess it depends. I don’t remember a lot of the first few months. I was in a lot of pain.”

“Right,” Daisy says, dropping her chin to her chest. “The leg.”

“Yeah. The leg.” He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say more, so Daniel doesn’t.

“It’s different when it’s not a real war, I guess,” Daisy says. She raises her chin, but immediately tilts her head back so she’s looking at the ceiling instead. She doesn’t want to look at him, that much is obvious, but Daniel finds some solace in the fact she’s talking at all, even after admitting they don’t really _do_ talking here. “It’s like… we all know we’ve been through shit. But there’s not an easy explanation. Not like being in a war is an easy explanation at all, of course, but…”

“But I came back home to people who knew I was messed up,” Daniel finishes. Even if people hadn’t been entirely ready to admit the effects of the war on the soldiers who fought in it and the civilians who were caught in the middle, they acknowledged _something_ was different. “Who are you going home to, Daisy?” he asks in a moment of unexpected boldness. He hardly knows anything about anyone; only that Simmons is married and what’s his face, the scruffy one, is her grandson. 

“This is my home.”

The wrongness of it twists his gut. S.H.I.E.L.D. shouldn’t be a home, he doesn’t think. Not just because it’s dangerous but because it’s so… impermanent. Daniel knows a thing or two about staking an entire life on S.H.I.E.L.D., knows how that turns out. For him, it would’ve ended dead in a swimming pool, if he hadn’t been snatched out of time.

For Daisy, it hasn’t ended yet, even through what seems to be a long series of unfortunate events, with torture only the latest on the list.

“And do they know?” He tries to be gentle, he really does, but Daisy still flinches.

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “I think… I really try to be the strong one, you know? Because someone has to be, and Coulson…” Her voice breaks on the man’s name, and Daniel wants to reach out, wants to help, but he doesn’t know _how_. Daisy sniffles once, and then continues. “I let them believe I’m okay, because someone has to be. You know?”

Daniel nods slowly. He understands the pressure of needing to seem _fine_ for the comfort of others, but it’s still upsetting Daisy feels like she has to do it alone. 

“What if I’m the okay one?” he offers quietly.

“What?”

“I can be the okay one. And you can take a break from it.”

Daisy snorts. “No offense, Sousa, but nobody really trusts you.”

“That’s fair.” They don’t know him, and he doesn’t know them. He can’t be whatever they’re asking Daisy to be - or whatever Daisy is asking herself to be, rather - because he’s just not close enough.

“But… I like talking to you,” she admits. “And I promise I’m capable of being more than just macabre and depressed.”

“Macabre and depressed are my two favorite emotions,” Daniel deadpans. Not exactly true, but who hasn’t lied for the sake of a joke? “And I like listening to you.”

Daniel’s beginning to notice the difference between all of Daisy’s smiles. This one is… fragile, almost. Like she’s waiting for him to say something that will break her.

He doesn’t want to break her. Obviously. He doesn’t want to break anyone, but especially not her. It’s funny, because he’s already seen her stripped down to her weakest state, and even then, she’d seemed stronger than most of the people he knows - but he still has this need to protect her, to be the one who helps her learn to _talk_ about the things that seem impossible to talk about.

“Thanks.”

“It’s really not a big deal.”

“But it is,” she counters. “I, um. I’m not normally comfortable talking to people who aren’t…” She struggles to find a word, and then just shrugs. He doesn’t know what she meant to say but honestly, he doesn’t care. “But really. I’m glad you like listening because I like talking. To you, I mean.”

Daniel’s cheeks heat slightly. “Good.”

“Good,” she repeats.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Daniel clears his throat nervously, “I hope one day you find someplace to go home to that isn’t… this. This was never meant to be someone’s whole life.”

“I had a home, once,” Daisy says. She closes off again, like petals collapsing in on a flower. “He died.”

The air rushes out of Daniel’s chest and he doesn’t bother trying to stop it. The gut punch of losing someone you love, someone you called home… How many sad stories does Daisy have to tell? How many of them has she never told before? And why the _hell_ is he the first person asking her these questions, the first person begging to listen?

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says, nearly talking over him. “We really loved each other. And he chose to die the way he did, the time he did. It’s not…”

“I chose to die the way I did, the time I did. Because I’d rather have had my life ended than the organization I loved eaten from the inside. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who mourned me.” Daniel pauses. “At least I hope there are.”

“You’re in the history books. Of course people mourned you.”

“A lot of bad people get into the history books,” Daniel can’t help but remind her. He knows the bad men who have had their names memorialized - the villains are remembered just as much as the heroes, if not more. More people knew the names of Nazis tried at Nuremberg than the people they’d killed. Thousands of names were lost to history while Adolf Hitler was written about, over and over and over and if _that_ didn’t keep Daniel up at night, nothing else did.

“I guess so,” Daisy sighs.

“See? I can do macabre and depressing too.”

That draws a chuckle out of her. “Can we not make a habit of trying to out-sad each other? That’ll get really old really quick.”

“Deal.” He sticks out his hand and is surprised when Daisy actually gets up off her couch to come shake it. There’s no scars on her hand, no mark of what Malick did to her, and there’s a metaphor somewhere about how even the most painful things can leave no visible mark.

Daniel’s pain has always been on his sleeve. No one can stop noticing his limp, his cane. People stare and pretend they’re not staring and it’s maddening. Maybe someday he’ll tell Daisy about it, if she ever wants to hear.

“I should get going,” Daisy says. “Long day ahead, probably.” She hovers by his chair, like she’s waiting to see what he does, and Daniel just nods at her.

“Sorry for keeping you up.”

“No, it’s okay. I couldn’t sleep anyway.” Daisy smiles down at him. It’s different still than her other smiles, but it doesn’t last long enough for her to inspect it. “Turns out talking helps sometimes.”

“I’m glad.”

“You coming?” Daisy asks after another second of hesitation.

 _With you?_

“Do you want me to?” he asks instead, unsure whether she’s inviting him into bed with her or just being polite. Probably the latter.

Daisy rocks back and forward and her heels. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’ll be fine, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He really, really doesn’t want to be reading this wrong.

Daisy huffs a breath out through her nose. “Just come back with me? I kind of miss you watching me sleep.”

Okay, so it _is_ like that.

He stands, and tries not to be further shocked when Daisy wordlessly offers him her hand.

They make it to the steps before she finally speaks. “I wouldn’t mind building a new home,” she whispers.

Daniel squeezes her hand, once. _I wouldn’t mind being one._

**Author's Note:**

> I learn so much when writing for Dousy! The phrase 'not my first rodeo' is first recorded in the movie Mommie Dearest, which came out in 1981. 'Life's not all sunshine and rainbows' is first used in Rocky Balboa, which came out in 2006. (I had Daniel understand the latter because it's more self-explanatory, heh.)
> 
> Also, if you're interested in the title of this fic, it's from [Run Away With Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHTaMlMKBH4), a song I think is very applicable to these two. :)


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